We Were There, Too!: Young People in U.S. History

Hoose's (It's Our World, Too!) impressive survey places young people at the center of every event that shaped America, from 12-year-old Diego Berm#dez who sailed with Christopher Columbus in 1492 to high school junior Claudette Colvin's refusal to give up her seat in 1955 Montgomery, Ala., nine months before Rosa Parks. The diverse contributions of these gutsy children and teens include 16-year-old Deborah Sampson, who masqueraded as Private Robert Shirtliffe and fought in the Revolutionary War, and 15-year-old Joe Nuxhall who, in the absence of many major league players-turned-soldiers, pitched for the Cincinnati Reds during WWII. Readers will appreciate the brief epilogues that explain what happened to each person in adulthood. For instance, Chuka, a nine-year-old Hopi Indian subjected to assimilation in white schools in 1899, "struggled to live in two worlds" throughout his life, and high school junior Peggy Eaton, who rode the rails in 1938, continued to live a life of adventure as a missionary and mountain climber. Informative sidebars provide additional, and sometimes humorous, historical asides to the biographical profiles (e.g., a story problem in a Confederate math book during the Civil War calculates the death toll of Yankees). Pictures, maps and prints help bring these stories to life, but it is the actions of these young people that will inspire readers to realize that they, too, can play a part in making America's history. Ages 10-up. (Aug.) Copyright 2001 Publishers Weekly Used with permission.

Gr 6 Up-A treasure chest of history come to life, this is an inspired collection. Readers could easily get lost in it by simply dipping into one compelling story after another. The selections are arranged chronologically, beginning with 12-year-old Diego Berm dez sailing to the New World with Columbus and ending (66 stories later) with 9-year-old Kory Johnson, who started Children for a Safe Environment. There are famous figures such as Pocahontas and Sacajawea, and less famous, such as Billy Bates and Dick King, both of whom escaped from Andersonville, and Enrique Esparza, survivor of the Alamo. Each story ends with a brief paragraph describing "What Happened to-" the person after that moment in history. The writing is a bit stiff, but it rarely gets in the way of the stories. Because the book is packed with historical documents, evocatively illustrated (with black-and-white photographs, engravings, drawings, maps, and the like), and full of eyewitness quotations, it should prove valuable to young historians and researchers.-Herman Sutter, Saint Agnes Academy, Houston, TX Copyright 2001 School Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

"A treasure chest of history come to life, this is an inspired collection. Readers could easily get lost in it by simply dipping into one compelling story after another . . . Because the book is packed with historical documents, evocatively illustrated . . . and full of eyewitness quotations, it should prove valuable to young historians and researchers." -Starred, "School Library Journal"